Is your confidence rooted in your appearance? Do you find that your mood is better when you’re having a “good hair day”? Or maybe your worst days are when you step on the scale? My beautiful friend and colleague, Tammy Hickey, describes how we can flip the script and put our focus where it belongs. Here are her words:

My heart sank as I walked by the mirror.   Up until that moment, I had forgotten I didn’t have any hair.  I had been going about my day, doing what I do.  Working.  Creating. Editing. Sharing ideas.  Knocking things off my To Do List.  I felt good physically and had good energy.  It was a GOOD day!  Then …. I had my moment in the mirror.  I immediately lost my joy.  The fact that I had cancer came rushhhhhing back into my thoughts and my being.  BLECH.

Have you ever been there, friend?

Have you gone about your day, feeling good and feeling joyful, and then you walk by the mirror and BAM – your energy and joy is immediately sucked out of your body?

I know.  ME TOO.  Even without cancer.

We are so critical and so OVERLY aware of our bodies.  We place SO much value on what is happening on the outside that it can be all consuming.  It immediately dismisses or erases every single thing we have done, who we have served, who we ARE.  Don’t you hate that?  When our whole disposition goes down the tubes because we’ve don’t like our thighs, or we’ve put on a little weight, or our jeans don’t fit, or we feel like we look like a freak without hair.  You get the picture.

Why do we do that to ourselves, friend?  WHAT IS OUR DEAL?

Here is what I know for sure, friend.  We have been led astray.  The pressures of this world to be and look a certain way as crept into our BEING.  Maybe it was from a comment someone made to you back in 9th grade about ‘looking like a pig’ or maybe it was the way the other girls looked at you when you changed for gym class.  Or maybe it was the nickname of thunder thighs that your Dad (love you Dad!) gave you.  Perhaps it’s the way you ‘think’ your husband avoids caressing or holding onto your ‘fluffy’ areas when you are intimate or the look he gives you when you grab a bowl of ice cream before bed.   

Then add in the images we see all over social media, TV and print ads that over glamorizes what healthy and beautiful looks like.  The way our feeds have been overcome with botox injections, fake bushy eyebrows (what the heck is with that trend?) or have you seen the ads for the exercise equipment where the girl is running full speed UP HILL with perfect posture, a smile on her face and then dances when it’s done????  COME ON!!  Don’t even get me started with this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.

We take all of these images of what society tells us beautiful looks like and take that on as an expectation – a bar set that we can NEVER reach!  Because of that expectation, we look for evidence constantly of where we don’t measure up.  How we feel like our husbands are not attracted to us anymore because of how we look and we immediately create scenarios of how we see that to be true.  The hand placement.  The look he gives.  THEN WE GET MAD AT HIM.  Lord, have mercy.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30)

Here is what I’m learning, friend – NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE REAL.  

The image of perfect body?  NOT REAL (as much as I commend J Lo – this is NOT the standard)

A perfectly shaped brow?  NOT REAL 

Running Uphill is easy and enjoyable?  DEFINITELY NOT REAL

We, as women, are made perfectly in HIS image.  He created us to be living, breathing beings in a body that is intended to help us fulfill the purpose He gave us.  The body itself is not to be praised.  What is to be praised is the real reason we are here – to fulfill His purpose on our life and to glorify HIM.  To radiate His love from the inside out.

End of story.

Let’s stop getting it wrong, shall we?  

Not to say that having a healthy body is not critical – it is!  Our body needs to be working WITH us and not against us, so it’s important that we take care of it.  Nurture it.  Treat it like the beautiful vessel that it is to help us fulfill our purpose.

But our bodies are not the point.

Perfect eyebrows are not the point.

Thin thighs and six pack abs are not the point.

Being able to run on mission for the glory of God is the point!

Friend – when we put Jesus first in our lives, we learn how to slowly turn the tide of what we view important and critical.  I won’t lie and say that I don’t struggle with the idea of being PRETTY by the world’s standards.  I still cringe at the size of my thighs and struggle with my baldness. BUT I’m learning how to fill my heart with more truths about what true beauty is all about.  

The condition of my heart.

The love I give to others.

The calling on my life that I’m fulfilling.

It is more important to me that the imprint I leave on this lifetime has more to do with the love of Jesus that radiates from my heart, then being another pretty face.

THAT to me is way more beautiful.  Wouldn’t ya say?  Who is IN with me?

xoxo

Tammy

mstammyhickey.com